Parsha Review Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:01 - Intro (Announcement)
You are listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.

00:10 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Welcome back everybody to the weekly Parsha Review Podcast. This week's Parsha is Kisetz. Kisetz is referring. Our sages tell us what is Ki Seitzei La'milchoma al Oyvecha. When you go out in war before your enemy, unesonei Hashem o lakecha biyodecha, and Hashem will bring him into your hand, v'shavis v'shivyo, and you will hold him in prison. So our sages say what type of war is this referring to? What type of war are we talking about here?

00:45
Sages tell us we have to remember that this is the war against our Yetzirah, this is the war against our evil inclination. You see, we all have temptations, we all have challenges, we all have urges and desires that pull us in all different directions. And particularly in the days of Elul, when we read this portion every single year during the days of Elul, when we read this portion every single year during the month of Elul, it's a perfect timing for us to recognize the Yetzahara that's within us and that we need to wage. We need to wage a war and a battle against our Yetzahara in a way, our Yetzehara, in a way that will be successful. How do we do that? I say, just tell us with joy with simcha, you have to fight your Yetzehara. With simcha you have to do Teshuvah out of simcha, because doing Teshuvah out of sadness, if a person is feeling sad and a person is not feeling joy, what happens? What happens is that they are not able to overcome the Yetzirah appropriately. A person must have joy. So the obvious question is what do you mean? I sinned, I did something potentially wrong, I went against the will of Hashem, and now you're telling me how do you repent? You repent with joy. How does that happen? Our sages tell us that there's only one real tool that we can use, because, by the way, the Torah says that what are we going to be punished for? We'll be punished not because we didn't serve Hashem, but because we served Hashem, but it wasn't out of joy. Everything we do needs to be out of joy, and our sages even teach us more that when a person repents, that repentance and this is why we need to have joy, when a person repents, that repentance changes the sin into a mitzvah.

02:45
Imagine if you have a moving violation. The police stops you for speeding. You're standing in front of the judge now and the judge says were you speeding? Yes, sir. He says you know what? Because you have regret for the sin, for the crime that you've done of speeding. You're speeding. I'm going to make it into a mitzvah. I'm going to lower your insurance rate. I'm going to take away.

03:12
Not only am I going to take away this moving violation, I'm going to give you something good instead of it. We'd be the happiest people on earth. Our sages tell us. That's why we need to do teshuvah. We need to repent out of joy, because Hashem doesn't like to punish us.

03:32
Hashem likes to give us reward. In fact, if you look, the Torah tells us that God, why did he create this world? Why did God bother with so many complicated things in His world? Leheti v'imbruaf? Hashem wants to give us good. Hashem loves us and he wants us to benefit from the goodness of His world. Hashem doesn't want to punish us. A benefit from the goodness of his world. Hashem doesn't want to punish us. Hashem, when he sees that we repent and we go away from our sins out of joy, hashem says ah, now I'm going to take that sin. I'm going to make it into a mitzvah. So what is not to be happy about? Of course, we have to be happy when we realize that all Hashem wants is our closeness. We have nothing to be sad about.

04:15
You know, it's very interesting that if you pay attention to how children pray, if you go to a school and I urge everyone to go to a cheder go to a yeshiva and watch the little children praying, it will fill your soul with joy. And the question is when we go to synagogue and we hear people praying, it doesn't necessarily fill us with joy. But when we see children praying, it fills us with joy. Why? It's not because their voices are so sweet, but it's because there's a happiness, there's an excitement in their prayer. You can hear it in the tune in which they sing. There is an abundance of emotion, excitement and energy and that's why we love it and that's why it is exciting for any person who listens to the prayers of a child. We are the children of Hashem and Hashem dances with joy when we have that same type of excitement and energy.

05:23
That's our job. Our job is to stand in front of the almighty and recognize you know what we made mistakes, but Hashem is merciful and Hashem wants those mistakes to be removed. Hashem wants those mistakes to be cleaned out. It's like imagine a child who comes into his house and he's all muddy and dirty. The mother's not going to let him walk into the house, get the whole house muddy. She's going to take him outside and put him in front of that power washer and wash him down so that that filth, that dirt, doesn't come into the house. Hashem doesn't want our dirt, our sins, in his house. Hashem says let's wash it up. Best way to wash it is when we do an internal cleaning, a cleaning called teshuva, repentance.

06:08
That is the essence of our war. Our war is not referring here to an enemy in the battlefield. It's referring to an enemy within the Yetzahara that's trying to persuade us to go against the will of Hashem. May Hashem bless us that we be awakened in this week's Torah portion, in our reading of this week's Parsha, that we cleanse ourselves. We utilize the days of Elul, these 30 days prior to Rosh Hashanah, to cleanse ourselves, to come closer to Hashem with great joy, because Hashem loves our closeness to Him. I wish you good luck. I wish us all good luck, because we all need it. I definitely need it.

Maybe you don't, but I do and hopefully together we'll be on this journey of repentance together. Amen.

06:52 - Intro (Announcement)
Please help sponsor an episode so we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content for our listeners around the globe. Please visit torchweb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.